Who Remembers This Blistering Dissection Of What It's Like To Be Bought By Yahoo?http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-linderman-on-yahoo-acquisitions-2013-5/comments
en-usWed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500Sun, 02 Aug 2015 20:40:51 -0400Jim Edwardshttp://www.businessinsider.com/c/51a4b7166bb3f76e2c000014rdwrtTue, 28 May 2013 09:54:30 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/51a4b7166bb3f76e2c000014
Overture seems to be now just Yahoo's advertizing branch? I didn't check very carefully. It appears that Yahoo is doing ok as a business to business online company. But you have to admit that the majority of social online experiments at yahoo never really went anywhere.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/51a3d0a0ecad04257f000007Dev BhatiaMon, 27 May 2013 17:31:12 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/51a3d0a0ecad04257f000007
Having been at a company acquired by Yahoo, let me suggest that the truth is a bit more nuanced. Even the list at the 37signals post suggests this. It includes “wins” by any metric. Right Media, Rivals.com, Alibaba. One could say that the bigger the acquisition, and the more specialized its segment leadership, the greater the likelihood of success. Going way back, I think Yahoo’s most successful acquisitions have been businesses that could be stand-alone units. These include Overture, which was already a massive public company when acquired, or Viaweb, which was not a big dollar price, but which became Yahoo Stores.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/51a3ce1becad04e17800000etom1295Mon, 27 May 2013 17:20:27 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/51a3ce1becad04e17800000e
This brings back uncomfortable memories of working in the corporate world. I worked for a very successful company that was purchased by an unprofitable company using some combination of leverage or funds from the pharmaceutical parent. Of course managers and locations that had created a profit for years were subordinated to those that had not. People with good ideas and high levels of efficiency were being directed to follow procedures developed by those who could not turn a profit before. Fully depreciated equipment went back on our budgets for amounts substantially higher than the original prices thereby damaging apparent management performance. And to make it worse, we lost a large profit based incentive bonus the first year after the merger because our prior year was swallowed up by the losses of the purchasing company. The original company was reduced to a brand name. Needless to say, I no longer work there.